The Stagnation of Attempting to Rebuild
I changed web hosts and made the number one mistake every new website owner makes
How I’m still restarting my blog from almost nothing
Back when I restarted this blog again, briefly, I said “hey, I’m rebuilding this from scratch! My old blog was completely deleted! I hope to post once a week!” And, no, I’m not going to talk about what an optimistic, naive, young woman I was, the me from almost 18 months ago. However, here I am, talking about the blog again, because it feels like I need to, and it feels like I should, to restart.
Where I was
I had been wanting to switch over to Squarespace for a while. I admit, the podcast ads got to me, and after starting a trial website, I decided, hey, why not, let’s do it. Squarespace advertises how easy it is to move over. And: it truly is easy switching over, unfortunately, maybe too easy.
After I switched web hosts, the joy of starting a new website was immediate. I got to pick a new layout, a new color palette, and the most fun, the new tools. However, when I thought about how to import my blog posts, I ran into my first problem: I forgot to back up.
Yes, I am still kicking myself for not backing up the Wordpress before starting up the Squarespace. I mean, what was I thinking, really? I think I thought I could still access it somehow, since all that data was still on the server, and I could still access the server. But, I didn’t think about the fact that using Wordpress on a server meant you still needed a domain to access it from, so, moving the domain over was my downfall.
After I switched and realized I didn’t back up, I struggled to figure out how to access my Wordpress for about hour, and ultimately I gave up, mentally and emotionally. Then, I gave it a good try for a couple weeks, but I look at my posts from last year now, and I really struggled to get a foothold on the new blog, what I thought was going to be the new me. I felt lost, and still somehow do. Even though I had not touched my Wordpress, or my old web host in a very, very long time, it still felt like I lost something from my past, at the very least all the time I spent on the website.
Where I am now
I had always been a person who enjoyed journaling, but I had not actually sought out journaling everyday and made it a point to do it. However, I watched an interesting video about morning pages a couple months ago. Coined by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way, morning pages are a quick way of journaling in the morning, done by writing nonstop for three whole pages. The video I specifically watched was from John’s Studio Notebook, where he actually talked about the notebook he liked writing in, and how you can change the “rules” of morning pages to fit you the best, how you don’t need to start at three full pages, you can start at one page, or two pages, and graduate to three pages eventually, and more if you need it.
So, I made time for it. Before I started doing morning pages, I would lay in bed until it was time to get ready for work, but once I started doing morning pages, I get up earlier to do chores, get my coffee and breakfast, and hope I have about 25-30 minutes to write. That is the sweet spot for me. Sometimes, I have more time. And sometimes, I have less time. But mostly, it is perfect. And I don’t push myself to three pages, I stay at a comfortable 2-ish page. I’m currently using a B5-size sheet, so that’s huge for me.
And because of my morning pages practice, I worked on other aspects of my creative journey, like I started actually using my tarot and oracle cards more, instead of just letting them sit in my drawer. From my tarot card practice, it pushed me to start this blog over again. (It’s a long story, it deserves a post on its own.) It took several weeks, because life has just gotten busy, but here I am: I’m typing!
Where I am headed
Where do I go from here? When I started working on this post, I checked the Wayback Machine, and my website was archived. (I think all websites are archived, but hey, I was excited.) So I plan on eventually reposting old entries I want to keep, and updating them to be current.
I am not going to be naive and say that I will try to post weekly. I just do not think I will have enough time to sit down and enjoy blogging if I did that. But I will say I will try to blog one or twice a month! I have some posts already drafted, and I have some adventures to go on, ready to write about those experiences as well. I would love to turn this into a regular practice, like my morning pages.
I still want to write about my explorations around me, but I want to keep a smaller focus. I want to write about small jaunts, locally owned businesses that we love to frequent (and new ones we want to check out, too), art festivals that we cannot wait to visit, museum visits, crafting. I want this to be a slice of my life that focuses on the more creative pursuits in life.
And of course, eventually I want to start up my shop again. Eventually! That was also all lost in the move. But, one step at a time.